Pierre Moscovici: Finance commissioner should also run Eurogroup

Pierre Moscovici, the European Commissioner for economic and finance affairs, called for Germany to be more open to investment, for France to deliver credible reforms, and for a more transparent Eurogroup to kick-start deeper eurozone integration.

Speaking to POLITICO’s EU Confidential podcast, Moscovici said: “It’s clear without a strong agreement between France and Germany, nothing happens,” adding “you need to have French ideas asking the Germans to do more for investment.”

The French commissioner also advocated a fully formed eurozone finance minister, and admitted that he’d be happy to do the job. “I would be honored, pleased, etc. to be in that function, I have been preparing for that,” he said, before acknowledging that the EU is far from creating such a role.

As a stepping stone, Moscovici thinks his successor as the next commissioner for economic and finance affairs should also assume the presidency of the Eurogroup.

“Without the Commission in that piloting function, you just would have rules without flexibility, without intelligence, and no democracy. The Commission at least is responsible in front of the [European] Parliament,” he said.

Moscovici, a veteran of more than 80 Eurogroup meetings, said he wanted deep reform to how the club operates. “I am very frustrated,” he said. “We are deciding behind closed doors the fate of 11 million people,” adding that the Eurogroup sometimes works with poor information and that its lack of accountability is unacceptable.

Structural reform with a human face is Moscovici’s antidote to the brutal image of austerity the EU’s institutions have projected in recent years. “I believe that we need structural reforms in Europe. But structural reforms don’t mean pain. It doesn’t mean that somebody should be punished,” he said.

That includes national government taking more responsibility for the drawn-out Greek turnaround. His message to Greeks: “You’ve made your part of the job. You have taken your responsibility. Now we need to take ours.”

Meanwhile, Moscovici rejected the idea of transforming the European Stability Mechanism into a European Monetary Fund — unless it comes with specific democratic controls.

“We don’t need more technocracy, we need less technocracy, and we need more transparency,” Moscovici said.